


Despite Everything

by perfectlystill



Category: Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: F/M, Relationship Discussions, Sexual Content, normal people au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-03
Updated: 2020-10-03
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:29:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26794408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perfectlystill/pseuds/perfectlystill
Summary: Peter is in the same spot on the sofa as before, and he looks at her like, “What the fuck?” and she looks at him like, “I know,” and nothing feels like this, as though they don’t need to say a word to understand each other.A scene fromNormal People.
Relationships: Michelle Jones/Peter Parker
Comments: 20
Kudos: 66





	Despite Everything

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tvfanatic97](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tvfanatic97/gifts).



> T! I am fairly certain whenever you yell at me to write the _Normal People_ AU, you are not actually saying, "Take a random bit from the middle and write that and nothing else while referencing the changes I've discussed making at the beginning of the story to make it work for Peter and MJ because then you don't actually have to adapt it and work through the parts that Don't Work," and yet, that is exactly what I did. Hopefully you enjoy it, regardless (And hopefully, maybe, you'll write the _actual_ AU we all deserve)!

Life offers up these moments of joy despite everything.  
SALLY ROONEY, _NORMAL PEOPLE_

A lull in the conversation settles in MJ’s chest. Her fingertips click against her ceramic mug; they’re just long enough to make a satisfying sound that resonates through her body. She offers Felicia a tight smile before her gaze shifts to Peter and the smile softens. He sits forward on the sofa, glass held between both his hands, a splash of water left at the bottom. “More?” MJ asks. She is searching for something to say, and she will go downstairs to the kitchen if he says yes. She will rinse out his glass, grab a new one from the cupboard, fill it with water from the Brita, bend the silicone ice cube tray until she has five cubes, plopping them into the water one by one. She will wipe up any splashes. She will take her time. 

MJ plots this respite, but Peter shakes his head. “No, thank you.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m good. Thanks.” His smile crinkles his eyes. 

MJ feels hers grow as her face warms. She dips her head and tucks a stray curl behind her ear. It strikes her as special that she reacts this way. Typically, she is good at controlling her responses, keeping people at length when she desires to do so, which she mostly does. She has friends here where she didn’t in high school, but a distance that is palpable, almost tangible, remains. MJ wonders if this is normal. She doesn’t have a large sample size or long history with which to judge. She feels close to Gwen sometimes. She feels close to Peter more often. And yet sometimes she feels further from him than anyone. She believes this to be a byproduct of the closeness, but she doesn’t know why or how. 

“You two are fucking, right?” Felicia asks. 

Peter clears his throat. 

MJ’s eyes widen, and she brings her mug closer to her body. “Yeah.”

She feels possessive saying it, even as she aims for dismissive, hand waving away what she and Peter share, do, are. MJ doesn’t know how to explain it, but with Felicia, she wouldn’t want to try. It is not about being misunderstood, so perhaps MJ does nourish the space between them. 

Felicia hums. “Thought so. Well, we all did.”

MJ deliberately relaxes, curling her legs onto her armchair. It is strange to think of her friends discussing her when she is not present. For her entire life MJ has known people talk of her in her absence, just as she has known the things they say are not altogether kind nor altogether false, but most of those people have not been to her home and she has not welcomed them into her life. It is strange to think Felicia, Harry, Flash and Gwen gossip about her sex life. MJ wonders, academically, where the line in such discussions would be, what counts as uncouth. 

She feels Peter looking at her. 

Felicia adds: “It’s not a secret, is it?”

“No,” MJ says. She returns Peter’s gaze. “No?”

“No,” he agrees. His shoulders relax. 

“It’s just different. From you and Brad. Less demonstrative.”

MJ’s nostrils flare. She knows. She is acutely aware wherever and whenever Peter touches her or chooses not to. If she is alone in bed at night, and she thinks of high school, a sharp, hollow feeling expands in her chest. Peter lied to her, and he hid her, and even when she discovered his secret, he tried to dissuade her from the truth. Then, he said, the hiding was for her own safety. MJ knows he believed that to be true, but it didn’t feel that way to her. 

“You guys make a cute couple,” Felicia adds, mouth curling, gesturing between Peter and MJ. 

The compliment hits MJ backhanded. Felicia likes Peter, but she has whispered to Harry about the faded spaghetti stain on the collar of his T-shirt at the perfect volume to be heard but retain the illusion of secrecy (she doesn’t know that Peter would have heard her, regardless), raised her eyebrows at his interest in superheroes, calling him juvenile and questioning his intelligence. But if it is an insult meant for Peter, it has no choice but to graze MJ, too. 

She doesn’t mind; it doesn’t hurt, but she looks at Peter. His jaw clenched. 

MJ says, “Couple?” at the same time Peter says, “Thanks.”

Felicia leans forward, looking between them. “You’re not… exclusive, then?” 

Peter finishes the last ounce of water in his glass. His Adam’s apple bobs. He glances at Felicia, then at MJ, then down. The tips of his ears burn red, spreading to his cheeks. 

MJ wishes he would answer. She doesn't know what he would say. 

“We’re not really labeling things,” she clarifies despite having no clarity herself. 

“Nice.” Felicia smirks, cat-like. To Peter, she says, “I didn’t take you as the non-monogamous type.”

Turning the glass in his hands, he shrugs. Something in him has deflated. For as much as Felicia judges Peter, he judges her just the same. 

“It’s not new. We used to hook up in high school,” MJ says.

Peter nods, mouth pursed. 

It feels good to say aloud. The only other person, besides Peter, that MJ has spoken bluntly to about what happened is Gwen. Part of her wants everybody to know. Another part wants nobody to know.

“I’ve always wanted to have a threesome,” Felicia says.

MJ blinks. Her throat has gone dry. 

Peter coughs. The flush has travelled down his neck, and he twirls his glass between his fingers before setting it down on one of the agate coasters. 

MJ shrugs, and Felicia looks at Peter again, even more intrigued by MJ’s silent acquiescence. Felicia would do it, MJ knows. She isn’t all talk. And while the idea doesn't appeal to MJ, specifically, she isn’t entirely opposed. She doesn’t know that her relationship with Peter requires it, and she doesn’t know whether she has earned the right to keep him for herself. 

“I don’t know,” Peter says. He scratches the back of his neck. “I don’t think… I wouldn’t want to… I’m not...” 

When MJ catches his eye, his irises are blown with panic. He needs her to save him. Peter takes care of everyone else, and she likes to take care of him, cleaning and bandaging his wounds, kissing his fading bruises, brewing him coffee after an all-nighter, a closing shift at the café followed by patrol followed by essay writing.

“I couldn’t,” MJ lies. “I would feel too self-conscious.”

“About what?” Felicia asks. “You’re a total smokeshow.”

“Oh,” she exhales. MJ knows she’s pretty, as conceited as it sounds. She doubts it sometimes, after a comment that’s more do with speaking her mind or knowing her worth or the perpetrator’s commitment to white, western, racist beauty standards. But she can smooth out her sundress in a full-length mirror and know, objectively, she’s beautiful.

It’s nice of Felicia to say as much, but MJ doesn’t care what Felicia thinks about her appearance. “It’s not that,” she says. “I don’t think I’d be good at it.”

“At a threesome?” Felicia arches an eyebrow. “I doubt that.”

“I’d be in my head. I wouldn’t enjoy it.” 

Felicia tilts her head left and right as though measuring the statement on a scale. “I can see that. You think too much for your own good.”

MJ forces a smile, and the conversation stalls again.

“I should go,” Felicia says. She sets her mug down with a light thud. “I don’t want to intrude.”

“You’re not,” MJ says. 

Peter stays silent as Felicia stands, reaching underneath her top to pull her bra strap back into place. “I have reading to do anyway.” She rolls her eyes. “Harrington is a pain in the ass.”

MJ laughs lightly, leading Felicia out of her apartment. Harrington rambles, often lacks lucidity, two points blending together and veering in odd directions, but he’s not a bad professor. He’s a tough grader, which is what Felicia means. MJ would say this in certain circumstances, but she won’t say it now. 

In the foyer, Felicia glances back. “Is Peter good in bed?”

MJ frowns. 

“I mean, he must be, right?” 

Swallowing down the knowledge of everything not being said, MJ agrees. Felicia slips on her jacket, kissing MJ on both cheeks before she leaves. MJ closes the door, clicks the lock and breathes. 

Peter is in the same spot on the sofa as before, and he looks at her like, “ _What the fuck_?” and she looks at him like, “ _I know_ ,” and nothing feels like this, as though they don’t need to say a word to understand each other. MJ’s entire body goes lax with it, warm and pliant and tingling. She lays her head on Peter’s lap and closes her eyes. His palm settles over her hair, thumb swiping once across her forehead.

“Thank you,” he says. 

MJ blinks up at him. He is her entire field of vision. 

“I could not have done that,” he says.

“If you wanted to, we could have,” she says.

Peter’s forehead wrinkles, and his mouth pinches at the corners. His thumb touches her skin once more, and he looks down at her. “Did you want to?”

“No, not really. But if you wanted to, we could have.” His mouth thins further. “Felicia’s very pretty,” MJ continues. “She has certain… assets, that are nice.”

He stares down at her, and she has no idea what he’s thinking. 

“You’re very pretty,” Peter says, the words scratchy as though the syllables are struggling their way out of his throat. 

MJ wants to turn her head, press her cheek against his thigh, and bury her nose against the crease between his leg and pelvis. She wants to move so he cannot see her, and she wants to lay herself bare before him and let him do whatever he wants with her. It is comforting to believe he would do the same despite their history providing irrefutable proof that he would not. 

Even still, MJ is at her happiest when she is making Peter happy. 

He leans his head back, the column of his neck long and pale. Last night MJ sucked a hickey into the center of his throat, and when he touched her this morning, the orange warmth of the sun diffusing through the blinds, it was already gone.

Peter makes patty melts for dinner while MJ alternates between flipping through a worn copy of _Lady Chatterley’s Lover_ and watching his back as he moves through her kitchen with familiar ease. The cheese stretches from the center of the sandwich to MJ’s mouth until it lands on her chin. Peter’s lips curve with affection, and she offers him another beer when his bottle is almost empty. 

In bed he says, “I’ve been thinking.”

MJ places her thumb between the pages of her book to mark her place. “That’s different for you.”

Peter huffs a laugh-like sound and shakes his head, causing a curl to fall across his forehead, brushing over his eyebrow and into his eye. He needs a haircut. “The Felicia thing,” he says.

“Did you change your mind?” MJ’s body stills, rigid and tense. She will have to text Felicia. She will have to shave. She will need to make sure her bra and underwear match. It is easier to plan than to consider the reasons Peter didn’t want to sleep with Felicia this afternoon but does now. 

“You said you didn’t want to,” he starts, words thick. “And you can’t do things you don’t want to do, MJ.”

She blinks. “I don’t.”

He stares at her and bites the corner of his mouth. 

“You know me,” she says. 

“I do.” Peter’s stare is intense and not entirely pleasant. MJ refuses to break it. 

She let him hide their relationship at Midtown. She ate lunch by herself and only attended a handful of social events because she spent those gatherings alone, too. She didn’t like Brad, but she dated him. She doesn’t like white wine, but she drinks it.

“You know I love you, don’t you?” Peter asks. 

MJ wets the corner of her mouth. Peter’s eyes track the movement, and she closes her book, losing her page. She sets the novel on her nightstand and shifts closer to Peter. Lightly, she rests her hand on his bicep. He exhales, sheets rustling as he moves toward her. MJ captures his mouth with her own. His lips are soft, and his hand cups the back of her neck, tilting her head the way he wants it. MJ moans. 

Peter’s tongue rubs at the roof of her mouth, their knees brush, and when she turns onto her back, he follows. Peter hovers over her, keeping himself from crushing her with one hand, the other slipping underneath her tank top to splay across her stomach. His touch makes her feel like her heart speeds up and stops simultaneously. 

It wasn’t like this with the guy she slept with after her first college party, and it certainly wasn’t like this with Brad. MJ believes it will not be like this with anyone else. She posits it’s because Peter is the first person she ever slept with, that she accidentally gave him the power to define her wants and preferences. He’s Spider-Man, and his abilities make him unnaturally skilled at fingering her to an orgasm; he has the unfair advantage of hearing any miniscule change in her breathing, the rate of her heartbeat, signs that are undetectable to anyone else.

The truth is likely more mundane. 

“MJ,” he says, mouth open against her jaw, two fingers curled in her cunt. 

“Peter,” she pants, call and response. 

“What do you want?” he breathes in stop and starts. He presses a sloppy kiss at the pulse point in her neck, and she clutches at his arm, fingers digging into the muscle. “What do you want?”

“I want you in me.”

She comes on his fingers first, and he kisses her sweaty collarbones before laying his head on her chest. He’s still hard, but he gives her time to recover, asking about her book. They get distracted with conversation, and she runs her fingers through his hair as she explains the plot, answering his questions. MJ enjoys this part as much as she enjoys the sex. She likes hearing stories about Ben and May, the PC game he and his roommate Ned rented from the library, his musings about his powers, the responsibility to help people because what he does matters, what everyone does matters. 

He fucks her after, their hands clasped together by her head. 

“That was good,” she says, pleasantly exhausted. 

“Yeah?” Peter props himself up on his elbow. His post-coital face is always a bit smug, and it makes MJ want to kiss him or shove him so he flops onto his back. She doesn’t have the energy for either. 

“Yeah.”

She goes to the bathroom and puts her hair up. She thinks about brushing her teeth again, but settles for splashing cold water onto her flushed face. She’s tired, and she looks it, but she also looks happy. 

MJ crawls back into bed. Peter makes space for her to cuddle against his chest, and his arm goes around her, fingers brushing against the skin of her shoulder. He smells like sweat and his cheap, chalky deodorant. 

He presses a kiss to her temple. 

She likes him. A lot. MJ’s attempts at downplaying that truth have been futile at best and embarrassingly transparent at worst. Peter must know it. He spends most nights in her bed. He makes her herbal tea whenever he arrives after a particularly awful patrol (He needs to do something with his hands). He offered to find coverage for his shift at the café to drive her home for her mother’s birthday. 

He will not hold her hand while walking down the street.

Peter noses at her hair, breath evening out as he falls asleep. MJ’s eyes slip shut and she throws an arm across his torso, cuddling closer. 

The lure of sleep takes her.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me being an embarrassment on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/saoirseegot) or [Tumblr](https://amyabbotts.tumblr.com/). Kudos and comments appreciated, and thank you for entertaining my whims.


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